Second Focus group

My media team and I had carried out another Focus group by interviewing three of our school mates. In this task we had selected an audience from different ethnical backgrounds from our interviewees from our previous Focus group study in order to find out the tastes of what other people had found appealing about music videos. In contrast to our previous interview in which our last interviewees were male , the people that we were interviewing in this study were all female. In order to compare our results with our results from our previous study, we had asked the exact same questions as we had asked before to see if this audience would provide us with similair or completely different results.

My ideas for my group's album cover

My ideas for my group's album cover

• A shot of a London area. This would be the British version of the cover for the Beautiful single, which shows an area of Detroit. My idea for this would be a shot of where this video will take place in, which the audience will assume to be Tottenham. My reason for choosing this borough of London for the image is that Tottenham and Detroit are similar in terms of local culture since both locations are both known for having crime and gang life present in these areas. Our music video will not be centred around gang culture but my I had thought this would be a way of showing a similar setting of Detroit that was based in the UK.

The cover of the Eminem single 'Beautiful'

• An image of the protagonist walking on the road with the more successful man with his back to the protagonist.The theme of this poster is the show the contrast between these two characters as they are both shown to walking on different paths. This shows these two men are in different positions in life and that one of them is significantly more successful in life than the other (the least successful man being the protagonist). This idea had came from the album cover of Recovery which is Eminem's seventh album. The cover for Recovery includes Eminem walking along the road with his back faced to the camera, which shows that he is walking on the road to 'Recovery' from all the troubles that he had experienced in his life.

The album cover for the Recovery album

• Another idea that I had was to be a poster based on a section in our music video. This album cover would show the protagonist in the party scene as he is sitting down on a sofa by himself. The protagonist will be shown wearing his mostly Gray clothing while there are many people socialising and talking around the sofa behind the protagonist. All of the people in the background would be shown to be wearing clothes with many different colours. This bright and multi-coloured clothes would be used to contrast the dullness of the protagonist clothes. These representations would show how this character is very bored and depressed with his life whereas everyone else seems to be satisfied with their lives. Additionally this cover would also show that we are creating intertextuality to the poster of the film the 40 year old virgin. The 40 year old virgin is a comedy film that was released in 2005 and features a protagonist who is a 40 year old man who has never had sex. My group and I had researched this film as we had found it had similar plot elements as the concept for our music video's narrative. We had found this poster for the theatrical release of the 40 year old virgin and had felt that it would be very good to use it as inspiration for our Digi-pack cover as this poster shows the films protagonist as he sits alone in the centre of the image, while everyone else is shown to be engaging into intimate relationships. Additionally the majority of people around the protagonist are shown to be wearing colourful clothes such as blue,green and purple while the protagonist is wearing bland clothes. The Mis-En-Scene in this poster represents how in this film, everyone around the protagonist will have an exciting and sexually active life while the protagonists will only be boring as he is still a virgin.

The 40 year old Virgin movie poster

A standard Digi pack template

 

Focus study group

This video shows how me and my team members have broadened our knowledge of our target audience by carrying out a focus study group on two of our school mates.These inteviewees in this video belong to an age group consisting of 17 to 18 year olds and therefore can be considered as members our our target audience. From this study we had learnt useful information about what our target audience would find attractive in a music video.

First Day of Filming

This was my group first day of filming our music video. We had begun filming on Thursday the, 29th of November in 2012, shortly after we had finished and finalised our storyboards.

On this day we had begun to film the interior segments of our music video in which our protagonist would be in his home. We chose to begun with these scenes as they were some of the scenes which take place after our video's introduction. 

We had decided not to start our filming our introduction on this day as it was most convenient for us to film the interior segments on this day as the film locations were available on this day. In addition we had realised that we could film the introduction another day along with the final shots of this video as the introduction and conclusion of this video take place in the same setting.

For this day we had used my home as a filming location. The rooms that we had used to film in my home had consisted of my bedroom, my bathroom and my living room.

Film Stills

In this film still my team member Michael is shown preparing our
 film equipment. To film our music video we had used Michael's
Cam recorder on a tripod that was provided to us by our school.

This image is a photo taken from my groups storyboards.
This shot in my storyboards depicts our video's protagonist
as he is sitting on the edge of his bed as he has just woken up.
This man is rubbing his hands over his face which shows that he is
very depressed.
This character is depicted from a high angle birds eye view as the shot
is seen looking down on the top of his head and shoulders.
The Mis-en-scene in this shot is that the camera is looking down on this
character from a high angle which represents this character being looked
down on by his peers and also that he is very unsatisfied with his life as he has
woken up and is obviously not looking forward to the day ahead of him.

In this image my team member Michael is shown filming my other
team member Leyon who is portraying our video's protagonist.
In order to match this shot with our storyboard, Leyon is positioned
on the edge of the bed as is the stick figure in our storyboards.
In addition we had arranged for the camera to be positioned from a high
angle on the tripod so that we could film Leyon at a low angle on the bed.
This is evident as Michael is shown positioning the camera in front of Leyon
and is tilting it down so that we can film Leyon from a high angle.

Filming locations

This is the edge of my bed, which is this scene's first  setting.
This is where the protagonist would sit and rub his hands
over his face in order to show his depression.

This is my bathroom which is this scene's second setting.
This is where our protagonist would wash his face
and look at drugs which are positioned to the left
side of the sink.                                     

This is my living room which is this scene's third  setting.
This is where our protagonist would dress him self and
pick up an old pair of shoes.

Critical Perspectives in Media

In class, we had begun to anaylse and evalaute the process that I had made while I was transitioning from AS to A2. I had describe and evaluate my skills development over the course of our production work, from Foundation to Advanced Portfolio. The focus of this must be on skills development, and the questions will require us to adapt this to one or two specific product practises. The list of practises to which questions will relate as it follows:

Section 1

• Digital technology
• Creativity
• Reasearch and Planning
• Post Producation
• Using conventions from media texts

Using conventions of real media texts

In my own project, I had created Mis-En-Scene that included different colour dress codes which had consisted of white and black coloured clothes. These colours had gave different representations to imply the characteristics of our characters, whether they were good or bad characters. This implies that these characters are polar opposites and that there will be a sense of good verses evil in our thriller.

Research and Planning
AS Thriller	A2 Music video
Research of real media texts	Research of real media texts
Genre-audience research- Questionnaires	Genre-audience research- Questionnaires
Watch them – Cinema, TV, Sky, Netflix	Listen to them- YouTube, MTV Base, iTunes, UK top 40
Websites- IMDB, Rotten Tomatoes, Empire magazine	Songs similar to our own
Research previous work	Conventions of genre and music-Mis-En-Scene
AS students on Youtube	Music Industry- history of music videos

Analysing an Album cover



• The title of this album is presented in the form of a tattoo on Rihanna’s left forearm which reads “Talk that Talk”. On a denotative level this tattoo appears to be similar to the phrase “talk the talk” which means to say something which sounds boastful but is in fact accurate. On a conative level, it appears as though the lyrics that are featured in this album’s music will sound legitimate to her target audience as if Rihanna can sing or ‘talk’ in a way that her target audience can relate to.

• This CD cover presents Rihanna in a mid shot, which focuses on her face and clothing. She seems to be wearing a party a black and white blouse and three rings on her index, middle and ring fingers. One her face, she is wearing dark red lip stick and a lot of mascara around her eyes. In addition her hair is shown to be very unruly and she has her hand covering her head. On a connotative level it appears as though Rihanna has just spent a night out partying and is now in the aftermath of those events. This could be implied by Rihanna’s attire and the make up she is wearing. Additionally she is holding her head as if she is currently suffering from a headache or a hangover. This presents Rihanna as being rebellious and also implies that the music featured in this album will be very loud and similar to party music.

• Rihanna is wearing very thick red lip stick, along with her tongue sticking out of her mouth. The red colour of her lip stick symbolises love which could imply that this album’s music may contain themes of love. Additionally the fact that the red colour is shown through Rihanna’s lip stick is effective in terms of representation as the red also signifies passion as she looks very seductive as she is licking her lips.
• Furthermore this same signifier is used to reinforce the theme of rebellion that is being promoted through this album cover. This is evident as Rihanna is seen sticking out her tongue which is commonly seen as a sign of rudeness and immaturity.

• Rihanna’s eyes are covered in mascara which contrasts her fair skin. She has a large amount underneath her eyes. Her eyebrow is significantly narrowed as they are both vertically pointing downwards. One of her eyes is partially covered by her unkempt hair. From a conative point of view, these aspects of Rihanna’s facial features show Rihanna as being somewhat of a bad influence on her target audience. This is shown as she has blackened eyes along with pointed eyebrows which give her a dark and disturbing expression as she glares to the audience in the cover.

• Rihanna’s full name isn’t shown on the cover. This is because she is already very well known worldwide which would mean that Rihanna only needs to use her image in order to sell her music as her face would be instantly recognisable in many different countries due to her worldwide fame. Instead of her full name, the letter ‘R’ is seen on the left hand corner of the CD cover. This letter can be seen as being somewhat of a recurring motif for Rihanna, as this same letter/symbol was also featured on Rihanna’s previous album ‘Rated R’. In addition this consistency could also indicate this album may contain very similar elements to Rihanna’s previous album.

• The font of this motif is very large with jagged edges. The colour of its font appears to be white and grey along with many small overlapping words on its surface which gives this motif a newspaper like texture as if this letter was cut out of a newspaper article. On a conative level this shows that Rihanna is currently very famous, as her name has been associated with the current news. 

Ideas for my group’s Album cover (Beautiful by Eminem)

• We could have a shot of local area in London, such as an area in Tottenham or Enfield, a housing estate or the area of London where we will film our protagonist. This would be seen as us creating intertextuality of Eminem’s single cover for his song ‘Beautiful’ which features a shot of Detroit.
• We could have a shot of a cemetery which will be one of our main locations in our music video.
• We could include a shot of our music video’s protagonist standing on a roof. The protagonist will be in silhouette, but presented as looking down in order to express his depression. This can be another form of us creating intertextuality to Eminem since this would be similar to the first shot of his music video ‘Not Afraid’ which consists of Eminem standing on the edge of a building roof top.
• For the album cover of our music video, we could have an image of the music video’s protagonist sitting alone in pub/restaurant (or any place for socialising). The protagonist would be by himself while he is surrounded by a large group of people who are all talking to each other but are all ignoring the protagonist. In addition the protagonist is shown to be wearing bland and grey attire while everyone else is wearing colourful clothes.   This Mis-en-scene of clothing would be used to show how everyone apart from the protagonist is satisfied with their lives and are in good positions whereas the protagonist has an uninteresting life and is depressed. Additionally this poster would also act as intertextuality of the ‘The 40 year old Virgin’ film poster in which the protagonist is shown to be alone at a local place while everyone else is socialising and kissing.

Audience Questionnaire

 Audience Questionnaire

1.       How old are you?

2.       What is your gender? (tick one of the boxes )           Male            Female

3.       Who are your favourite music artist/artists?

4.       What is your favourite genre of music?

R n B

Hip Hop

Rock

Pop/Pop rock

Dance

Grime

Other

5.       Where do you prefer to listen to music?

At Home

At School

With friends

At a party

Other

6.       How much of an effect do you think a music video adds to the music itself?

A great amount

A fair amount

Very little amount

Not at all

7.       What attracts you to a music video the most?

The music

The artist

The promotion

The music video

8.       What do you find most appealing about music videos?

The visual effects

A story narrative

The Art direction

The Choreography

The video’s message

9.       What is your favourite music video?(Please state the name of the song and the artist)

                 

10.   How often do you listen to American hip hop music?

Everyday

Quite frequently

A fair amount

Not often

Not at all

11.   Who would you say is your favourite U.S rapper?

Eminem

Lil Wayne

Nicki Minaj

Jay-Z

Rick Ross

Other

12.   Have you heard the song ‘Beautiful’ by Eminem?

Yes

No

If you ticked yes, please state your opinions on that song

My Music video team and others involved in our video

My team

• Leyon Stolz-Hunter
• Michael Phillips
• Tyrell Chetty-Wilson
• Shayne Thomas-Gordon (myself)

As there are four of us in this group we will all be contibuting to our project indivuidally aswell as working together as a team in order to get the best grade possible in A2 Media. My team members and I will achieve this by communicating with each both in school and out side of school so that we are consistantly working on project and supporting each other whenever someone needs help.

As a group, I am certain that we will be able to find time around our other A level subjects, and social life to organise dates when we can meet and carry out work outside the school environment such as our planning and filming.

It would not be difficult for us to communicate since we socialize with each other everyday in school.  

Job roles of me and my team members 

Leyon Stolz-Hunter(Actor, co script writer)- Leyon will play the role of the main protagonist in our music video. As a group we had all decided that , Leyon would be the most suitable out of all of us the to play the lead role in our video since he has the quality of being a talented actor. In the past, Leyon has had much experience acting in dramas and plays and is currently studying Performing Arts as one of his A level subjects. Aditionally Leyon has also served as one of the co writers of our music video's narrative script.

Michael Phillips(Script writer, Main camera operator)- Michael's key role in our project will be to record most of the scenes in our music video. To aid our project, Michael had contributed by providing his own camera for us to film. In addition , Michael has also contributed a great deal amount to the planning of our music video during its stage of Pre Production. When we were planning the story of our music video's narrative plot, Michael had given very useful ideas for what we could include in our music video and also advice on what would be useful to include and what would not be very useful to include.

Tyrell Chetty-Wilson(Actor)- Tyrell's role in our music video will be very similar to Leyon's role. Tyrell will also be acting in our music video as the secondary actor that would be shown interacting with Leyon's character. The character that Tyrell will play will have a cruical role in the story near the conclusion of our music video. Similarly with Leyon, Tyrell is also a very experienced actor as he has had much experience in acting in the past and is also studying Performing arts at A level. My group is vey priviledged to have two experienced actors which could both contribute their performing skills to our project.

Shayne Thomas-Gordon(Script writer, Storyboard sketcher,co camera operator)- During the Pre production stage of our music videos production, I had a very prominant role during our planning. When my group was first planning our music video, I was one of the key script writers of the music video's story narrative plot.  For example , I had provided the music video idea in which the protagonist is walking very close to a cemetary which connotes that this character is very close to his death.

Additionally, I was also elected to draw out the storyboards that would include the different camera angle shots that my team would plan to include in our music video for presenting different scenes in the video.

I am also studying A level Art as one of my other subjects, so we had thought that it would me most suitable if I had carried out this job role. Later on during the production stage of this project, I may also serve as one of the camera operators whenever Michael is unavailable to film certain segments of this media text.

Furthermore, I will also play a small role in our music videdo as a man that the protagonist walks past. 

Characters in our Music video

• Main protagonist- Leyon
• Man in smart clothes- Myself
• Protagonist's friend- Tyrell
• People walking on the road (3 to 5 people)-TBA
• Protagonist's love interest- TBA
• People at the party(4 to 6 people) -TBA
• 
  

Costumes

• Main protagonist- Dull and casual grey clothes, grey suit battered shoes
• Smartly dressed man- Smart clothes, shirt,trousers, smart black shoes
• Protagonist's friend- Casual clothes,Blue jeans,Blue shirt, Blue hoodie
• Protagonist's love interest- Red dress(connotes love)
• People at the party and on the road- Casual clothes

Our music video artist

My group has chosen to use the American rapper Eminem as our artist for our music video.

About Eminem

"Eminem" is the stage name of the American rapper Marshall Bruce Mathers.

He was born in Detroit,Michigan  on the seventeenth of October in1972.

In addition to him having a successful career as a rapper, he is also a member of the American Hip-Hop group D12. This rap group was mainly acive during the 1990's and had also consisted of Eminem's close friend DeShaun Dupree Holton who was the late rapper 'Proof'.

He is currently one half of the American Hip Hop duo "Bad Meets Evil" along with fellow American rapper Royce da 5'9.

Mathers is one of the most successful rappers of the past decade and is considered to be one of the greatest rappers of all time. His music technique often consists of humerous and emotional lyrics.

His music has drawn much controvsey in the past due to his lyics which are addressed to his troubled past and his legal issues. He has also been known to make fun of other celebrities in a selection of his music videos.

Albums

• Infinate (1996)
• The Slim Shady LP(1999)
• The Marshall Mathers LP (2000)
• The Eminem Show (2002)
•  Encore(2004)
•  Relapse(2009)
• Recovery (2010)

Notable works

Allocations

• 13 Grammy awards
• 4 Brit awards
•  12 MTV Video music awards
• Academy Award for best song in 8 mile (Lose yourself)

The Music Industry

What is it?

The 'Music Industry' refers to any of the music organizations which play a part of the marketing of music and music videos such as their promotion, production, and distribution.

This applies for types of music that are both mainstream and non-mainstream. As this industry is run by organizations, the main purpose of this industry is to gain profits from the music that they create and provide to their consumers.

The key indivuidals which contribute the most to the industry would be the music artists that performer the music( an artist or a band), the music's song writer(s) and the organizations which promote and distribute the music.

Other people that are involved in the music industry would be the Sound operators, which are the people who use specialised audio equipment to record,mix and edit the sound of the music once it has been performed by the band.

In terms of the Music videos, the people who play a large role in their production would be the music video directors and the cameramenwho record the footage that will be featured in the video.

 During the process of the video's creation, the music video's producer will be present at all times to oversee the video's production and make sure that everything is going according to plan.

Additionally the music's target audience are also very important to the Music Industry as they are seen as the consumers , which provide the industry with its income.

My group's chosen song

For our A2 music video, we had decided to use the song 'Beautiful' by Eminem. These are the lyrics to the song.



 Song Information

Song name: Beautiful

Artist: Eminem

Album: Relapse

Genre: Rap/Hip Hop

Release date: 11th of August, 2009
Director: Anthony Mandler

Our reason for chosing this song

The process of chosing a song for this coarse was a very long and difficult task. Me and all of my team members had many different ideas for song choices that we could have potentially used.
However we had realised that many of our choices had certain disadvantages that may cause problems for use during the production of this project and could potentially lose us marks.
For example a few of our song choices had been released by mainstream artists which would have meanmt thyat my group would most likely have problems contacting the artist's record label company.
 In addition we had to make sure that the lyrics of our song had some form of meaningful mis-en scene so that we could use it for inspiration to create a our own form of  Music Mis-en-scene that is based on the orginal songs lyrics.
I myself had initially suggested to use the song 'Playing in the Shadows' which is a UK hip hop song that was released by the British rapper Example in 2011, which is taken from his album of the same name (Playing in the Shadows.
My reason for suggesting this particular song, is that I had felt that this song had a very dark and ominious tone when I had listened to it. The song begins at a very slow pace, which gradually builds as the song progresses, which shows that song builds intensity as it reaches its climax, which sounded somewhat suspenceful.
Another aspect of this song that had intrigued me was the song lyrics. After I had listened to this song for a number of times, it had seemed as though to me the lyrics were expressing someone who was behaving in a rebelious and uncivilised manner.
These lyrics had sounded very ideal for me to include in a music video as , I felt that me and my team members could have used them to create mis-en-scene of a rebelious adolescent child living in the UK.

Playing in the Shadows song lyrics	Our music video’s Mis-en-scene representation
‘I got someone waiting at home for me’	A parent at home, while their teenage child is out very late at night.
‘Tomorrow she’ll probably disown me’	A teenage that does not have a good relationship with their parent or guardian due to a bad up bringings.
‘Playing in the Shadows all night long’	Adolescent children staying out very late at niht and meeting up with other teenagers. The ‘Shadows’ can be seen as very dark characters in which the music video’s protagonist is getting involved with.
‘So good to play with bad girls’	This can be used to show children mixing in with a group of friends that can be seen as a bad influence. Teenage promiscuity.
‘All those calls ignored’	An adolescent child could be shown to be ignoring/disrespecting their parents who are trying to contact them very late at night, as they are worried for their safety.

However, we were forced to scrap this idea, when we had realised that this type of music video would need to be shot at night due to its dark tone and lyrics. We wouldn't have been able to carry this out at night since the lighting would have made the music video extremely hard to see.

After this my group had considered a number of other songs to base our music video on. These suggestions had included 'Yesterday' by the Beatles (1965), 'Lego House' by Ed Sheeran (2011), and 'Too Close' by Alex Clare (2011).
We had found that all of these songs had a good amount of potential for creating a music video, however we had found that all of these songs had featured limitations to them that would prevent us from achieving the most amount of marks that we possibly could.
Another factor that had prevent us from using these songs where that most of these songs were very mainstream due to the fact that the artist had gained much popularity in the past years. This would be a problem since my group would be required to contact the record company of the artist so that we can inform them that we are using their property to create a new media text. This would be a main problem for the music artists that are based in America.

However we had ultimately decided to use the song 'Beautiful' that was released by Eminem in 2009.
Me and my team members are all familiar with Eminem's music as we all enjoy listening to his music in our spare time.We chose this song as we felt this song had contained very meaningful lyrics which we would be able to generate mis-en-scene from. We had noticed that the overall tone of 'Beautiful' is very emotional which features a few dark elements. This had helped us to think about what kind of video we would want to create ,in terms of it being a very positive video with lots of colour or being very negative with dim lighting and sad images.
Despite the fact that this song has emotional and depressing tone, it conveys a very positive message of accepting one's self for who they are and not to care what other people think about them. This message is  conveyed through the song's chorus which includes the lyrics # But don't let em say you ain't beautiful, They can all get f**ked, Just stay true to you'.
My group are fully aware of the fact that Eminem is a music artist who is american which would mean that his record company would be based in the United States. However we will only need to show that we had genuinely attempted to contact the record company.

This is the music video for my group's chosen song.



Audience Behaviour

Richard Dyer's Utopian solution theory



Richard Dyer



Inadequacy	Poverty	Confusion	Exhaustion	Isolation
Solution	Abundance	Clarity	Energy	Community

This solution gives people a choice of compensation for the inadequacies in their own lives.

An example of this solution being put to use would be if we tried to do an Anti-Smoking campaign into this: there would be clear motives that we could offer based on the Dyers solution, e.g. gain money, understand the facts,gain energy, join a quiet club.

So what does this mean for our product?

We aim to offer our target audience compensation for the inadequacies in their lives. This is Richard Dyer's Utopian solution.

Andrew Goodwin's theory of Music videos



Andrew Goodwin

1. Music videos demonstrate genre characteristics. Examples include stage performances are used in metal music videos, dance routines are used in music videos for boy/girl bands, aspirations are used in Hip Hop music videos.

2.There is a relationship between lyrics and the visuals. These lyrics are represented with images. These images are often described as being illustrative, amplifying or contradictive).

3.There is a relationship between music and visuals. The tone and the atmosphere of the visual reflects that of the music.

4.The demands of the record label will include the need for lots of close ups of the artist and the artist may develop motifs which recur across their work.

5. There are frequent references to the notion of looking (screens within screens, mirrors, stages). In addition there are often voyueristic treatment of the female body.

6. There are often intertextual references of films, TV programmes, other videos etc.

This is an example of intertexuality of a TV programme being presented through music videos. The top image is a still from the music video 'Express yourself' by the british rapper Labrinth'.  In this image Labrinth is shown to be wearing an orange top and it appears as though he has been writing lines on the large black chalkboard behind him. This can be classed as intertextuality as this is very similiar to the opening of the animated american TV programme 'the Simpsons' in which Bart Simpson wears an orange shirt and constantly writes out lines on a large chalkboard.

Feminist Film theory and Audience

• Cinema reflects society.
• Therefore cinema reflects a patriarchal society.
• How does a patriarchal society manifest itself in cinema.

Erotic Desire

Mulvay argees that women have two roles in film. Both of which are used for voyueristic purposes.

• As an object of erotic desire for the characters.
• As an object of erotic desire for the audience.

The Gaze

• The 'Gaze' of the camera is the male 'gaze'.
• The male gaze is 'active', the female gaze is 'passive'.
• Within the narrative male characters direct their gaze.
• The spectator is made to identify the male 'gaze', because the camera films from the optical point of view, as well as the libidinal point of view of the male character.
• Thus there are three levels of the cinematic gaze- the character, the camera and the spectator all of which objectify the female character (the triple gaze).